Denis O'Reilly Blog #18: "How to Break Out"

Denis O’Reilly’s series Nga Kupu Aroha/Words of Love (#18, 3,300 words), from the living edge of Aotearoa

• A headline from gangland: better employment and health
• Managing crime and punishment in New Zealand; restorative justice vs the Maricopa Country chain-gang method; the passing of Joseph Roberts, mentor, coach and American Eagle; gang policies in NY (community development) vs LA (suppressive policing); recognition for Ecuador’s Latin Kings
• Tigilau Ness documentary From Street to Sky; Robert Muldoon and Rastafarianism; social rage directed into art; “music speaks louder than words”
• The coronation of Kingi Tuheitia; Bishop Paraone Turei’s sermon affirming “whakakotahi (collective unity) and the desirability of enabling Maori to be unique
• Papakainga: architecture, whanau housing and the Hawkes Bay village settlement project

Denis O'Reilly Blog #17: Looking through a kaleidescope

Angela Davis, 1974

“It must be a beautiful feeling to fly halfway around the world, touch down in a seemingly contented society, and discover a body of people who have been enacting your disobedient thinking for over 30 years.”

Blog #17 of Denis O’Reilly’s series Nga Kupu Aroha, from the flipside of the edge; “Looking through a kaleidoscope” (4,750 words):

• The meaning of Maori tangi; tangi for Mick the Aussie biker in Wellington, and Rangi Tareha at Waiohiki Marae after a 500-strong funeral in Redfern Sydney; the Hamuera Morehu Silver Band
• Arthur Young’s The Reflexive Universe and his explanation of the seven stages of evolution (Theory of Process)
• Edge-dwelling and the brink of disobedience
• The visit by Angela Davis (“the candle of social resistance”) to New Zealand with a radical agenda: the process of decarceration and introduction of restorative justice; her influence on the Polynesian Panthers in Auckland, capital of Nesia
• Definitions of “organised crime” in New Zealand; distinctions between venial and mortal sin; discontinuity of the 1980s economic reforms resulting in a 3:1 Maori/Pakeha unemployment rate; moral panic and the perspicaciousness of policy makers in regard to the criminal justice system
• “Can we reverse the trend and steer those people who are caught up in crime back to legitimate pursuits?”
• Time magazine’s cover story “New Zealand: A Culture of Violence” and Zeppelins sighted in Southland
• A good reason to get upset – the grand denial of potential; imprisonment becoming the standard expectation of our underclass, our lumpenproletariat, our nga mokai; Law & Order Select Committee submissions by Principal Youth Judge Andrew Beecroft and Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro
• “Could we agree on having a decarcerated nation within which the indigenous people are proportionally the least imprisoned population segment?’; tut-tutting at Australia
• “Police dragnets can criminalize whole communities and land large numbers of non-violent children in jail and don’t reduce gang involvement or gang violence…Once jailed these children will inevitably become hardened criminals and spend the rest of their lives in and out of prison…The emphasis needs to be on changing children’s behavior by getting them involved in community and school-based programs that essentially keep them out of gangs.” New York Times, 19 July 2007, “The Wrong Approach to Gangs”
• Celebration of life for daughter Kaylene; prayerful and profound intervention of a tohunga; respect and admiration for an ICU doc
• Maatariki – planted shallots, garlic, onions and chives and now time to dig in mustard so it can enrich the soil for Maori spuds: Tuteakuri, Moemoe and Perepuru
• A week ahead of politics and difficult engagements dissuading people from one path and persuading them to take another.

Posted. Raumati South

Nga Kupu Aroha #16: Denis O'Reilly

"Those that have ears let them hear"

The killing of Jhia Te Tua (2) in a drive-by shooting in Wanganui on May 5 has created grief among her family and iwi - and quite possibly a tipping point in New Zealand gang history. In the latest post in his Nga Kupu Aroha: Words of Love series, Denis O’Reilly tells of Jhia Te Tua’s tangi at Tukorehe marae at Kuku south of Levin (pictured); the talk of whanau and warriors; triangulation between gangs, police, officials; the geo-politics and zeitgeist of Black Power and other gangs; linkages between gangs, social development and criminality; factors, findings and recommendations of the latest Government report on youth gangs in Counties Manukau; a New Zealand gang timeline; international strategies for community-wide approaches to gang prevention (Divert; Contain; Redirect); and five “Maori stones” from James K Baxter – aroha, korero, matewa, mahi and mahuhiritanga – that set philosophical values for ways forward. 5,500 words of intel, analysis and advocacy. http://www.nzedge.com/features/ar-denis16.html

Says O’Reilly, “being in the trapped lifestyle of a gang is a waste of time and human potential.” He asks: “What would it take for the brothers to put down their patches? I don't just mean for an event or such - they'll generally do that if asked respectfully - but as a lifestyle. Well, what would it take for us as a nation to resolve this whole issue? If the brotherhood acknowledged that in fact they don't want a trapped lifestyle that means relative poverty, jail, and underachievement; if the brotherhood said we want to join in socially because we want our kids to succeed and we don't want them in jail, we don't want them to repeat our mistakes; as a nation what would we do?”

Denis O’Reilly is a Hawkes Bay social innovator, coach and businessman. He is a life member of Black Power. His methods of social development at the edges of our society have been honed by his experiences over three decades of mediating with gangs, working in State systems, academic research, and corporate business.